Doctors battle exam rider

Contract Doctors’ Association members at the news meet on Friday. Picture by Ranjeet Kumar Dey

Members of Contract Doctors’ Association (CDA) on Friday decided to boycott the written examination of Bihar Public Service Commission (BPSC) scheduled for February 16.

In a meeting between CDA and Bihar Health Services Association (BHSA) at IMA Hall, the joint decision was taken in this regard.

The CDA members said the association called off its statewide strike on January 15 after the health department promised that contract doctors would not have to take the BPSC written examination. The members accused the department of breaking the agreement by issuing them admit cards for the examination. BHSA general secretary and secretary Dr Ajay Kumar and Dr Arun Kumar respectively were representing their association in this meeting.

CDA president Dr Amitabh Kumar said: “The health department had agreed to our demand of promoting contract doctors on the basis of walk-in interview only after which we decided to call off our strike on January 15. If the state government was reluctant, why did it accept our demand to lift the strike? This implies it was a just a trick to end our strike. We have been issued admit cards for the BPSC exam and the officials of the health department are now claiming that they would promote us on the basis of interview from next year but not this year. But this was not the deal with the government.”

“Now, we feel cheated. Today, we held this meeting to discuss what steps we are going to take regarding this issue. All of our members are unanimous on boycotting the February 16 BPSC examination,” Dr Kumar added.